Patrick
by The Madman From The Bronx
Summary: For the challenge issued by NewsgirlxRider. About the pained mother who lost her boy and the boy himself. R n R! Contains both Christian and Anti-Christian views, so as it is balanced, I feel that it is technically not religious.
1. Chapter 1

Patrick O'Malley was always small for his age. He had had one best friend as people who have best friends normally do, but this was when he was too little to know any corruption, even growing up on the streets of Manhattan. His best friend had been a little German boy named Arthur, before Arthur was thrown out of school in the 2nd grade. Literally. Patrick had tried to be big and bad like the other Irish boys at school, which never worked. So, he did the next best thing- collaborated with the enemy.

He was an easy target. Patrick had stopped bringing things to school long ago because they got stolen. His father left his mother, and he tried to be a good little boy. Bring in the money, keep out the pickpockets. If only Mrs. O'Malley knew what her son had really done to get the money, she would've just about died.

One unfortunate day, Patrick got caught by a pawnbroker and taken home. He was a nice Italian man, the type of person gullible enough you'd steal from in a minute but regret for the rest of your life. Patrick held his head high, wilted inside from double shame, both his mother's and for once, his own. Prior, he hadn't known the difference. The man had let him go, but the worst punishment was to come.

"I never thought." Mrs. O'Malley said, in a thick Irish accent. "I never thought I'd live to see this day."

"You mean you never hoped to," Patrick muttered, but loudly enough for her to hear. "But then Papa left."

"Do not mention your father, Patrick!" Shrieked his mother. "This isn't about him! This is about you! You stole! You have shamed God, you have shamed your family, and you have shamed yourself!"

"Money, Mama, money." Patrick reminded, exasperated. "You can deny it all you want, but you needed every cent of it."

"I wanted it in an honest way! It is poison! I would die from it now, knowing how you got it!"

"This isn't an honest world, Mama! How can you expect to live in this type of corruption and never get caught in it?"

"This world may be corrupt, but we are not!" Yelled she. "God is pure, and everything we do is in the name of Him!"

"I'm tired of hearing this!" Patrick's voice rose. "Papa left us because he was selfish. The streets of this city are filled with carcasses. The water we use is so dingy I can't even see my own reflection in it. We haven't lived alone since we arrived in this sorry place. Things from our home are being stolen from people we should be able to trust. And you still believe in purity? You still believe in God, a man that would just stand by and watch? If He does exist, then he is no better than…" Patrick stopped, biting his tongue down so he didn't finish the sentence. He was going to say William Randolf Hearst, who got this country into war with Spain last year by lying to the American people. A man who had all the power but only did bad things with it.

He didn't want to look at his mother. But he knew he had to eventually.

Storm abdicated to silence, which seemingly lasted a long, long time. And still Patrick did not look at his mother.

He did look at her, her eyes closed and her lips taught, and another moment passed. Slowly, finally, her lips unfurled and another moment passed while they paused, oval-shaped, thinking of how to speak.

"You are right, Patrick. The world is corrupt."

Patrick was surprised.

"But I am never going to lose faith in it, or withdraw my faith from God. I cannot tell you what to think or what to believe. Beating you or damning would do neither you nor me any good," she paused, eyes still closed. "But I will not allow a thief to live in my house."

Patrick left and left the door ajar so she wouldn't hear him leave. He paused before descending the stairs, turning around and looking at his mother.

Her eyes were still closed and her hands were wrung. Just like when she was praying, when she was in another world, but she wasn't in another world now. She was caught up in facing the pain of the real world, but only for a moment. For the other infinite moments, she _was_ in another world… a world so much worse than the one we face. A world that only mothers can enter but cannot leave only by themselves.

Wherever Patrick was leaving his mother, he was leaving her forever.

Patrick closed his eyes and stood for a moment, his Mama filling his mind. Mama leaning over a gas stove, warming her hands. Mama hanging things on the clothesline. Mama telling him of things from the old world. Mama saying her prayers, her boy beside her, eyes open and observant while hers were closed and unknowing, lost in her own world of goodness. Mama smiling and singing. Mama crying softly, oblivious to her young son's ears. Mama leaning over a young child, a little boy, succumbing to scarlet fever. Mama crying again, and another tombstone to add to the graveyard. Missing kissing a child and sending him off to school, proud of how good and how smart he is. Mama, hanging on to the only one she's got. Wanting to be proud of him.

He almost wanted to stay.

But he knew he couldn't.

He had to be who he was.

Without having to fight for himself every day.

Patrick O'Malley, who wasn't an O'Malley anymore, descended the stairs and opened the door to the exterior of New York, this time closing the door firmly behind him. Now he was simply Patrick.

* * *

**AN-- Disclaimer: I am not trying to promote or demote any religion here. This isn't preaching or bashing. This is a story of a boy whose beliefs varied from his mother's.**

**BTW-- the person mentioned in the beginning was actually a real person... the little German boy is none other than Harpo Marx! YES Harpo's name was Arthur, (but originally Adolf) YES he was literally thrown out of the school in the second grade by two big bad Irish boys and most importantly... YES he lived in New York! *Adding* him to my story just popped in my head, lol.**


	2. Chapter 2

_Two weeks later…_

Patrick heard the rain last night.

The clip-clopping of horses' hooves and the sound of wheels in slush and chattering voices marred together in his muddled mind. Once the sounds separated and he fully entered this world again he sat up and got up, slipping on the wet stone. Being a newsie had never occurred to him, and he wished it hadn't. For he still couldn't pay his way for lodgings and he wasn't getting any better at it. Maybe he was trying too hard not to lie. Because 'improving the truth' made him feel unscrupulous and just like the greedy, sneaky newspaper tycoons he worked for, and sick to the stomach. He had been a pickpocket, and not that kind of pickpocket. His victims never even saw him, and if they did see him, they would know exactly what he was doing. It wasn't lying. It was just another natural occurrence in this world. In this seamless, shady city of New York.

Patrick leaned against the wall of a building and drew a cigar from the pack he had hawked last night, trying to ignore his slightly grumbling stomach. The only things people sold outside were fruit, so fruit was the only thing he ever ate, unless he was lucky enough to find an unsizable man or an unaccompanied woman carrying a package of some other sorts. That hadn't happened yet. Nor had he found the courage to go into a store under a merchant's shady eye and do his business there, ever since the encounter with the pawnbroker. But if he got caught, at least he would have a place to sleep—the Refuge.

Patrick liked to ease into the day, and now that he had decided to stop selling newspapers, he had all the freedom he wanted. Most days began with a cigar, like today did.

"Hey, kid." Patrick jumped and looked up, startled.

Two boys towered over him.

"My name's Oscah Delancy, and we'ah gonnah be dah best a' friends." The boy with the bowler hat smirked, sending chills up Patrick's spine.

"IF… you'se willin' to do a little somthin' foah us." Said the other guy, who had a moustache.

"See dose boys ovah theah?" The first guy spoke again, pointing across the street.

Two boys were play-fighting while several others smiled and laughed, looking on.

"What about them?" Patrick asked.

"See dah shoaht one? Ya know, like you."

The boys laughed.

"Yeah." Patrick said through gritted teeth.

"We wanch ya to, ya know, woik 'im ovah." Chuckled the one named Oscar.

"Yeah, real good." Said the other one.

The boys both laughed again.

"No." Patrick said.

They stopped laughing.

"What?" The boy named Oscar asked quietly.

"No." Said Patrick. He was disgusted. He would never, ever do anything like that. I'll never live to see the day I do, he thought.

Silence.

"Okay." The unnamed boy said quietly. "Den we'se gonna woik you ovah!"

"No!" Patrick's stomach turned over like a turkey roasting on a spit. I'll die, he thought. I'll die!

Suddenly he turned around and ran into the street.

The two boys chuckled again. "Stupid kid."

Patrick watched them, frozen in his tracks. Surely, they would come after him. Surely, they would…

Still laughing, the boys walked away.

Patrick was stunned.

Then, relief washed over him.

He closed his eyes, savoring the moment in which his life had just been spared.

He closed his eyes, but only for a moment, and turned slightly in his position, stepping out of balance in his relaxation.

He opened his eyes, and saw only brown and black, long faces and beady, doleful, and now spooked, white-edged eyes. And high-pitched, animal-like sounds. The unwitting faces of death.

Patrick drew in a sharp breath when he knew what it was. "Oh, no." He croaked.

Patrick didn't see the commotion he had caused. He didn't see the overturned carriage or the passengers tumbling out. He didn't see concerned newsboys filling up the street and for once not even thinking about selling papes. He didn't see the Bulls arrive. He didn't hear the ladies scream. He didn't hear the Delancy Brothers laugh loudly, filling the air with a sickening plague.

3 months later found the voice of a mother mingling with the yelling of newsies. She had begun marching on for her new life's journey, looking for her son. We shall never know what Mrs. O'Malley felt in her head, whether she knew whether she would ever find him again or not, but it didn't matter, because when it comes down to it, our hearts are the only place where we truly believe: When we hope we will make it and no matter how much we tell ourselves the chances are low are still heartbroken when we don't, and when we tell ourselves we won't make it yet somehow still hope and are not saddened while it's not proven. So Patrick's mother searched her heart out, and never stopped thinking about Patrick and wondering what he was doing wherever he was. She didn't know Patrick was a thin, but guileless cloud of smoke, gone from the world and not doing anything, not thinking or breathing or talking, but for all she did know he could've been. Maybe even if she knew it somehow logically, and knew exactly what it meant- that she would never see her son again- she never stopped hoping.


End file.
